In
order to spy on Arthur Mitchell (the Trinity Killer), Dexter has joined
Arthur's church under the false name of Kyle Butler, and in this scene
he has joined Arthur at one of his church charity projects, the "Four
Hearts, One Heart" effort to build homes for the needy.

We
see them putting up the wood frame of a new house in an empty lot.

When
Arthur notices that Dexter doesn't have any tools, he gives him the hammer
he used to beat a man to death at an office plaza.
(Dexter somewhat admires his audacity.)

Dexter
asks him about family matters, trying to figure out how Arthur manages
to juggle so well a
normal family life and serial killing (a problem Dexter himself has,
now that he's married with children).

Soon,
Dexter spots Arthur's teenage son, Jonah, and joins him at the nearby water
cooler.

Dexter
probes Jonah for info about his father, but the son has nothing but great
things to say about his father ("Best Dad ever!"), noting that
his dad recently gave him his prized car.

(We
learn later that Arthur is actually a very abusive father, and Jonah ends
up smashing that car, on
purpose.)

Q.
What is it actually in real life?

A. An empty
lot - just not in Florida.

Q.
Where can I find it in real life?

A. They filmed
this scene in an empty lot located at approximately 1730 N. Gower Street,
in Hollywood, CA.

It's on the
east side of Gower Street, just two blocks east of the famous intersection
of Hollywood & Vine, and about less than five blocks north
of the Sunset-Gower Studio where
"Dexter" is filmed.

It is (appropriately
enough) literally right across the street (south of) Trinity's
church.

The lot is just
behind (north of) a small strip mall at the northeast corner of Hollywood
Blvd and Gower Street, and just south of a small church parking lot at
the southeast
corner of N. Gower Street and Carlos Avenue.

According to
city
records I found online, the land there was bought up by the city in
2005-2006 "for the development of permanent housing and supportive
services for homeless youth." The plan calls for them to build "40 to
60 units".

Later
plans state that the new housing was to be known as the "Gower
Villas", and that the lot was made up of three parcels, with a total
of approximately 35,400 square feet
of land, located at 1720-1736 N. Gower Street.
It looks like they planned to start building on the site in late 2008,
so there must have been a change in plans, since the lot was still empty
in Fall of 2009.

( But construction
could start soon, so don't be surprised if you drive by at some time in
the future and find a new building sitting on the currently-empty lot.
In fact, here
is what it will reportedly look like when it's finished.)

Here is a Google
StreetView panorama of the lot.

Here is an aerial
photo (ignore the former buildings seen on the now-empty lot).
And here is a map
link.

Q.
How the heck did you figure out where it was?

A. This
one was difficult. After all, most vacant lots look alike, there
were no street numbers or street signs visible. And without knowing where
to start looking, in a county encompassing almost 500 square miles, the
views of the surrounding buildings weren't of much help - they were too
generic.

Naturally,
I started looking in Long Beach first, since that seems to be their favorite
city. But it turned out that I was wasting my time there.

I noticed
that one of the buildings in the background had a mural/sign on the wall
that read "Draft Beer to Go". That could have been a major clue,
and I searched for it, but it turned out to be a dead-end as well.
When I finally found the right spot, that mural/sign was no where in sight.

I was
about to give up, when I happened to see something important in the background
of one of those shots from the home build scene.

In
one view, behind Dexter's head (while he was talking to Jonah), I thought
I spotted what looked like it might be the top of the Capitol Records
building., peeking out above the top of a cluster of palm trees. That
building, shaped like a stack of records, is distinctive, but so little
of it was visible in the shot that I couldn't be positive at first. (Look
in the upper right corner of the screenshot above.)

So
I checked to see if there was a tall building to its left (similar to the
one in the scene). And sure enough, there was, just to its south
(at the corner of Hollywood & Vine). So I knew that if my hunch
was right, we were looking west, towards Hollywood & Vine, and
that the empty lot would be found just north of the Boulevard, probably
just a few blocks east of Vine. And I was right.

But
finding the lot then still wasn't as easy as it should have been. When
I went looking (via aerial photos) for an empty lot just east of Vine,
the aerial photos didn't show one. Why? Because it's an empty
lot now (as of 2009), but when those aerial photos were taken, there
was a large apartment house sitting on the lot. Apparently, it was torn
down rather recently.

That
kept me guessing for a while, but eventually I used Google Streetview to
spot another landmark from the screencaps: an apartment house located across
the street from the lot (to the north) that had a distinctive stripe across
the front. Once I discovered that apartment house (at 1725
N. Gower), I knew the lot was right across the street. And sure enough,
the Google
StreetView photos (which were taken at a later date than the aerial
photos) revealed an empty lot across the street, surrounded by the same
homes and buildings seen on the show